Killing Grounds: The Gilgo Beach Murders – Review | Prime Video

KILLING GROUNDS: THE GILGO BEACH MURDERS on Prime Video is a new True Crime documentary series in four parts.  Once again, it’s about the Long Island Serial Killer, but much of the focus is (fortunately) on the victims and their loved ones. Read our full Killing Grounds: The Gilgo Beach Murders docuseries review here!

KILLING GROUNDS: THE GILGO BEACH MURDERS is a Prime Video documentary series based on true crime. This is far from the first documentary covering these cases, but it is the most recent. As such, it was even able to include the guilty plea of Rex Heuermann, which came earlier this month.

YOU MIGHT LIKE…

Our review of Lost Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer on Netflix >

This new docuseries from Amazon MGM on Prime Video has four episodes. The first focuses on the victims and the unfair struggle to get any attention from the police. The last episodes focus more on the perpetrator and how he was caught. We hear about nuclear DNA and the errors made (sometimes almost deliberately) by law enforcement.

Continue reading our Killing Grounds: The Gilgo Beach Murders docuseries review below. Find all four episodes on Prime Video from April 22, 2026.

The Gilgo Beach case that expanded

While this Prime Video docuseries is titled after the Gilgo Beach cases, it does also go beyond those. After all, Rex Heuermann was ultimately arrested and labeled the Long Island Serial Killer. He may even have committed crimes elsewhere, which is also mentioned here.

What I liked about Killing Grounds: The Gilgo Beach Murders is that so much of it focuses on the victims and their loved ones. Both the victims we know are part of this serial killer case, and quite a few that are still officially unsolved.

From 1996 to 2011, Gilgo Beach became an infamous site where 11 bodies were discovered. For years, the deaths of these women remained unsolved with no suspects identified. Of course, much of this has to do with the police refusing to throw many resources into the murder cases.

Why? Well, because the women often worked as escorts or sex workers of some kind. Nothing new, but Killing Grounds: The Gilgo Beach Murders once again shines a huge spotlight on this gross injustice.

Watch Killing Grounds: The Gilgo Beach Murders on Prime Video

The Prime Video true crime docuseries comes from director Emma Cooper. She previously directed documentaries such as The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe and produced Who Killed Jill Dando? Also, Emma Cooper worked on several amazing Louis Theroux documentaries, which I have always enjoyed (and been terrified by).

Along with focusing on the victims and having many interviews with their loved ones, we also hear from law enforcement and reporters who worked on these cases. While the police officers and retired FBI agents involved are very aware of the errors made, the reporters also make it obvious that they witnessed this early on.

There’s a hope that the police will look closer at murder cases involving sex workers in the future, but also doubt that this is actually the case. As long as that’s where we stand, it seems these women (and men, in the cases where the perpetrator targets men) are still easy targets for the sadistic deviants wanting to cause harm.

That is perhaps my key takeaway from both this and previous documentaries about the Long Island Serial Killer. He was an architect and an “upstanding citizen” who demanded the respect these girls were robbed of. Even though it’s obvious he deserved scrutiny much earlier on.

Why (and how) should this change as long as many of the same people are in charge? As much as it angers me, we have to acknowledge the systemic issues if we want anything to change. That’s why a documentary like this has value and importance. Also, because it respects and honors the victims.

Killing Grounds: The Gilgo Beach Murders is on Prime Video worldwide on April 22, 2026.